New Buddhist Path - Implications to New Evolutionary Myth - PP 62 - 85

[Jakuden]

I loved this section because I could ramble on at great length and with great pleasure in disagreement with David Loy. I'll just take one statement quoted in Jundo's opening post:

Sure you can see our eyes in such a way, but that wouldn't be science. One of many arguments comes from a wonderful 1959 paper in cognitive psychology by Jerome Lettvin et al called "What the Frog's Eye Tells the Frog's Brain". Most of the paper is about the technical details of the structure of the frog's eye and brain, but there's a nice pertinent section early on:

Lettvin et al found what came to be called 'feature detectors' in the frog's eye - 'cells in a frog’s retina that are predisposed to respond when small, dark objects enter the visual field, stop, and then move intermittently'.

The point is that the frog's eye doesn't present to the frog a 'true' representation of 'reality'. It works to create a reality for the frog that enables the frog to eat and avoid predators. There's no scientific reason to suppose that we human beings are more important or better than frogs, or indeed, anything special in the grand scheme of things. By this argument, the view we have of 'reality' is not to do with 'the cosmos perceiving itself'. Just like the frog's eye, the human eye has evolved by natural selection to ensure our continued success at surviving and reproducing ourselves. (Incidentally Donald Hoffman has a more modern argument to the same effect - https://www.theatlantic.com/science/...eality/479559/)

Or do you think we're better than frogs croaking in a spring paddy field?

Jeremy
SatToday

I disagree. If you get down into the atomic structure of that frog's eye, you will find the same atoms that make up the rest of the cosmos, a knowledge science has given us. They are just arranged in the particular way that we call class II ganglia to detect motion. We and the frog are just different ways of the universe looking at itself!

Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mp]

We and the frog are just different ways of the universe looking at itself!

Gassho
Shingen

s@today

[Jeremy]

Jeremy,

The Buddha often emphasized that it is incredibly rare to obtain a human form in this Universe. Of all the possible combination of atoms and molecules constantly rising and falling, human is just one of immeasurable possibilities. Humans aren't "better" than frogs but we have been reborn in the human realm which is considered the ideal realm to learn the Buddhadharma. Frogs aren't banned from entering this Sangha, and frogs have much to teach us, but frogs aren't equipped to study Buddhism. Their karma leads them where it leads them, just as ours leads us where it leads us. Nothing to add or take away.

Gassho

Sat Today

Hi Byrne,

I liked what you said earlier "Why do so many western Buddhists feel they have to make it clear that Buddhism doesn't contradict science? What does that have to do with any of the problems Buddhism addresses?" My post about the frog was from a scientific perspective, whereas yours (which I liked very much) came from the Buddhist point of view.

Quite a few of the writers David Loy quotes in this section (Elisabet Sahtouris, Brian Swimme & Thomas Berry) start with a specific agenda of bringing together science and spirituality. I do think these people have an awful lot of interesting and valuable things to say, but from a scientific viewpoint, they have a tendency to spill over into nonsense and pseudoscience. Here's Elisabet Sahtouris, for example:

The barriers between science and spirit are dissolving as scientists find cosmic consciousness in a non-local, non-time energy field that transmutes itself into electromagnetic energy, and, in turn, matter, in the creation of universes such as ours, as we have seen. Presumably it can also create itself -- self organize -- into other pure energy patterns in a myriad ways, including angelic realms, for example, and all the "worlds" we may exist in between lives, and eternally.

and now Brian Swimme:

I think that gravitational attraction is an early form of compassion or care. If there weren't that kind of care at the foundation of the universe, there would be no formation of galaxies...

From a scientific standpoint, this is nonsense. From a spiritual point of view, I guess it's a question of taste. It's not my cup of tea, though

Jeremy
SatToday

[Jundo]

The point is that the frog's eye doesn't present to the frog a 'true' representation of 'reality'. It works to create a reality for the frog that enables the frog to eat and avoid predators. There's no scientific reason to suppose that we human beings are more important or better than frogs, or indeed, anything special in the grand scheme of things. By this argument, the view we have of 'reality' is not to do with 'the cosmos perceiving itself'. Just like the frog's eye, the human eye has evolved by natural selection to ensure our continued success at surviving and reproducing ourselves. (Incidentally Donald Hoffman has a more modern argument to the same effect - https://www.theatlantic.com/science/...eality/479559/)

Or do you think we're better than frogs croaking in a spring paddy field?

I would disagree somewhat. A frog is the stuff of the universe catching flies, also stuff of the universe. A frog is an expression of the universe catching flies.

Shakespeare is the universe writing plays and poems, from the mind of Shakespeare, put onto paper with ink and performed on a stage ... each and every one the stuff of the universe. Thus, Shakespeare is the universe writing love sonnets which are also the universe.

It may or may not be wrong to say that the universe had to, or was destined to, lead to where we sit ... yet here we are, the products of every twist and turn of universal history without a seeming miss ... every factor of physics, chemistry, biology, history and you name it that had to be "just so" for our births, in the end just so. Could it have been the product of universal dumb luck or blind processes, a roll of Darwin's Dice? Of course. Might the dice have somehow been loaded in ways we have yet to fully understand? Of course.

Gassho, J

SatToday

PS - I do so agree that this can all spill over into new agey pseudo-science and quantum fuzzbucket baloney. We have to be very careful in reaching too far. Some of the quotes you posted by Swimme et. al seems to be just such claptrap. However, to say that you are the universe, down to the last atom, typing on a computer that is the universe down to the last atom ... thus the universe thinking about and writing about the universe ... is a conservative statement. Are you somehow outside or apart from the universe? I would say no more than the hairs on Jeremy's head, should they become conscious and start pondering the question, could assert that they are not an aspect of Jeremy.

To say that, for whatever reason, every factor of physics, atomic chemistry, biology and all the rest happened to work out precisely as needed to allow you and me to be sitting here thinking about and writing about the universe and about how things worked out (while, under our present model of a random universe or universes, such seems not to have needed to be the case at all if one single left turn anywhere in events when things needed to go right to lead to where we sit) ... is a conservative statement. At present, there is no explanation for such an outcome except (1) dumb luck combined with a selection effect or (2) a multiverse of possibly universes in which about anything that can happen will happen somewhere and sometimes. To say that the dice may be loaded, or more afoot, in ways we do not presently understand in order to bring such an outcome ... is also a conservative statement To say that "the dice absolutely were not loaded, nothing more afoot, because our knowledge on these points is complete" is overreaching too.

[Jeremy]

Hi Jeremy,
I think there are other ways to look at this. Things like color arn't "out there" in the world. But the result of a combination of different wave lengths of light interacting nerves in the eye and then a electrical-chemical reaction takes place. We could also say this data is processed further. In either case, it hinges of the idea of an "out there" and "in here." But if we set aside that distinction for a little while I think we can see it as one unfolding process that is composed of smaller processes. Like a Rube Gold machine where a phone call ends with putting toothpaste on a toothbrush. Its just part of the process.

Hi Hoseki,

I like your way of putting this. I agree that 'the idea of an "out there" and "in here"' is central here.

Jeremy
SatToday

[Jeremy]

I disagree. If you get down into the atomic structure of that frog's eye, you will find the same atoms that make up the rest of the cosmos, a knowledge science has given us. They are just arranged in the particular way that we call class II ganglia to detect motion. We and the frog are just different ways of the universe looking at itself!

Hi Jakuden,

Yes, that's a nice Zen way of looking at things. There's a reason David Loy and others talk in terms of the human eye rather than the frog's eye. They have a specific task in mind, and for that you need a critter with a full complement of mental faculties - intelligence, intentionality, self-awareness, boundless compassion, the lot. It also helps if you've been to the moon and seen what the earth looks like from up there. The task is, of course, to save the earth from the crisis we're in, particularly the mass extinction event that we seem to be entering and I don't think the frog is up to the task. If frogs ruled the world, we'd be doomed... then again, if frogs ruled the world, maybe we wouldn't be in the mess we're now in !

Jeremy
SatToday

[Jeremy]

To say that, for whatever reason, every factor of physics, atomic chemistry, biology and all the rest happened to work out precisely as needed to allow you and me to be sitting here thinking about and writing about the universe and about how things worked out (while, under our present model of a random universe or universes, such seems not to have needed to be the case at all if one single left turn anywhere in events when things needed to go right to lead to where we sit) ... is a conservative statement. At present, there is no explanation for such an outcome except (1) dumb luck combined with a selection effect or (2) a multiverse of possibly universes in which about anything that can happen will happen somewhere and sometimes.

Hi Jundo,

This sounds like the "Fine Tuning Argument" or 'The fine-tuned Universe". In case anyone else is interested, this is 'the fine-tuned universe' (from wikipedia):

The fine-tuned Universe is the proposition that the conditions that allow life in the Universe can occur only when certain universal dimensionless physical constants lie within a very narrow range, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different, the Universe would be unlikely to be conducive to the establishment and development of matter, astronomical structures, elemental diversity, or life as it is understood.

This is regarded by some as evidence for the existence of God, and by others as evidence for the existence of some form of intelligence behind creation.

There are quite a few arguments against it, including one by Jay Garfield and Graham Priest. Typically they argue that the Fine Tuning Argument is fallacious, or that questions it is designed to answer are invalid.

One that I like is the answer by "Star Lord" here http://www.askamathematician.com/201...ucive-to-life/
(Some of it is gobbledegook, but the core of the argument is cool).

Like I said earlier, I could ramble on at great length about this section of David Loy's book, but I'll save anything else for another day, as these themes come up again and again

Jeremy
SatToday

[Jundo]

Hi Jundo,

This sounds like the "Fine Tuning Argument" or 'The fine-tuned Universe". In case anyone else is interested, this is 'the fine-tuned universe' (from wikipedia):

This is regarded by some as evidence for the existence of God, and by others as evidence for the existence of some form of intelligence behind creation.

There are quite a few arguments against it, including one by Jay Garfield and Graham Priest. Typically they argue that the Fine Tuning Argument is fallacious, or that questions it is designed to answer are invalid.

One that I like is the answer by "Star Lord" here http://www.askamathematician.com/201...ucive-to-life/
(Some of it is gobbledegook, but the core of the argument is cool).

Like I said earlier, I could ramble on at great length about this section of David Loy's book, but I'll save anything else for another day, as these themes come up again and again

Jeremy
SatToday

Hi Jeremy,

Fine tuning has been used by many in the Christian community as evidence for a designer or deity. I find that unfortunate. I believe that there may be other explanations or mechanisms at work to explain why this universe in which we find ourselves possesses a very long list of factors with just the qualities falling within a fine range of strengths and other characteristics necessary for life, intelligent life and you and me in particular ... most or all of which factors seemingly did not have to be (and were more likely not to have been) just so. Change even one such key factor and we would not be here to discuss this fact.

The fact that there might be a "multiverse" of myriad universes does little to explain, on a most personal basis, why you and I happened to "luck out" to find ourselves in apparently just the universe where we selfishly needed to be. Some intelligent life somewhere might have found itself in some universe ... and even some version of a Jeremy and a Jundo somewhere ... however, under our present understanding of how the universe works, you and I (not someone else and not a copy) had one chance to be born and, nonentheless, here we are. Lucky us.

A friend, a physicist, once pointed out to me that someone has to win the lottery, and the winner will tend to be surprised at his luck. Surprise would be based on a fallacy. That is an obvious fact. However, we are in fact the winner, not of one lottery, but of an incredible and nearly uncountable series of moment by moment lotteries and rolls of the dice stretching back billions of years any single one of which ... should it have rolled to another number ... would seemingly have foreclosed our existence. He admitted that this is strange in the same way that, if heading into a shady casino and seeing the roulette wheel come up to the winning number 1000 times in a row, well, it could just be luck. Likewise for 10,000 or 10 Billion times. But at a certain point, looking at the incredible pattern, one might want to check for magnets placed on the wheel by a crooked dealer with a hidden pedal. At a certain point, cheating becomes a more likely explanation for the wild outcome. A person who did not assume cheating at a certain point would be a sucker to the con game, and broke. To be born, we are not the winners of 10 Billion spins in a row, but countless splns in each and every second since this universe was born ... all without a miss. One bad roll and we would not be present to note the fact. It may be time to look for the trick of the weighted wheel. What is the mechanism to explain this astonishing fact which complements our present understanding of evolution and how this universe works?

The anthropic principle has predictive power, by the way. Scientists are coming more and more to employ it to predict qualities of the universe based on little more than the fact of our existence, which qualities later show themselves to be true. For example, Dark Energy is little understood. However, whatever it turns out to be, if it is assumed that it must have a certain set of qualities X to allow human existence ... but not a certain set of qualities Y which would foreclose human existence ... we can now predict with some confidence that it has qualities X. Later, we can confirm this if we are able to actually find Dark Energy and measure its actual properties. Here is one example, so many more.

https://www.newscientist.com/blog/space/2007/09/is-there-human-link-to-dark-energy.html

Gassho, J

SatToday

[AlanLa]

One of the the benefits I got out of this section was how I now better understand how all things are considered sentient beings. Rocks, for example, never made much sense to me as sentient beings. I mean, they are rocks, what could be less sentient than that? BUT Loy's point about how leaving hydrogen alone for billllllllllions of years until it eventually turns into you and me and all the rest made me realize I was looking at it from too narrow of a time perspective. Given enough time, hydrogen is sentient through me and you and all the rest of us. Given a somewhat shorter timeline, it is easy to see how coal and oil are sentient, too. Given that, rocks are now also just a hop, skip, and a jump away from sentience. I bow to all beings.

[Jyukatsu]

I also bow to all beings, and thank you all for your comments : I love this book.

Jyūkatsu,
sat today

[Jeremy]

... Given enough time, hydrogen is sentient through me and you and all the rest of us. Given a somewhat shorter timeline, it is easy to see how coal and oil are sentient, too...

This reminded me of a quote from Einstein:

People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

That's taken out of context. In context, it's even better. Einstein wrote it in a letter to the family of a deceased friend:

Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Step lightly, stay free,
Jeremy
SatToday

[Risho]

I have mixed feelings about this section. I get concerned when non-scientists use science (or their lay interpretation of it) to justify their belief system. I'm not saying that is necessarily happening here, but I bring it up because if I read another post suggesting that science is catching up with the Buddha I am going to puke lol

Science is a vague term, but science is a very rigorous and disciplined field. We hear the latest theories and they are exciting but I think there is a danger as a layman to misinterpret and misunderstand scientific theories, and to begin to extrapolate and in to apply these theories to fit our worldview; whreas scienxe is a discovery of truth. This is a problem with authors like Deepak Chopra who bastardize scientific principals into nonensical spiritual fluff that is complete bullshit but gets on the ny times top seller list. yes Im on a soapbox but I respect truth and science and zen.

I think it's fascinating to think of the universe as an organism, but if I just subscribe to that I wouldn't be true to myself because I frankly do not understand all of the science or implications of that statement, so I dont want to jump on board a belief just because it sounds interesting.

This leads to my next point; I'm not sure that I need a new mythology per se; rather, and what I like about zen, is keeping an open mind to possibilities rather than just accepting assumptions etc about how things are. This goes for traditional superstitions and theories like the multiverse; fascinating but hard for me to "believe". Again I dont know how that could be proven (or I dont understand the proofs) so Im hesitant to jump in agreement with a scientific theory I do not fully comprehend; after all that would not be very scientific; instead it would be treating science as a faith based religion which it is not.

Gassho

Risho
-sattoday

[Jeremy]

I have mixed feelings about this section. I get concerned when non-scientists use science (or their lay interpretation of it) to justify their belief system...

I'll give my thoughts on this. Please bear in mind that I'm talking purely from a scientific, and not from a Buddhist or Zen perspective. I found the references to consciousness from this section particularly dubious.

Starting on p 62:

... the experimental evidence is unambiguous: what we experience as reality does not become "real" until it is perceived. Consciousness is the agency that collapses the quantum wave into an object, which until then exists only in potential.

First, let's take his claim that "the experimental evidence is unambiguous". This suggests there is near unanimity among the physics community on this, and that's simply not true. Some interpretations of quantum mechanics do not even involve wave function collapse, so to claim that the evidence is unambiguous doesn't hold. Second, the "consciousness collapses the wave function" interpretation is a particular interpretation called the Von Neumann-Wigner interpretation, which I don't think is popular nowadays (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Ne...interpretation and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner%27s_friend. Also see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obse...fect_(physics) for an alternative interpretation - paragraph 2 and the section "Quantum mechanics" are relevant).

On p80

quoting Freeman Dyson: "Matter in quantum mechanics is not an inert substance but an active agent, constantly making choices between alternative possibilities... It appears that mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent inherent in every electron."

In other words, what we perceive as randomness implies some degree of freedom, and freedom involves consciousness, even at the subatomic level. What does this suggest about "random" DNA mutations?

Speaking as someone who cares about the science of psychology, this is nonsense. Most definitions of consciousness include a reference to 'awareness' and an apparent ability to make choices doesn't imply awareness of the choice making. Popular descriptions of experiments showing quantum weirdness quite often ask questions such as 'how did the electron decide which way to go?', or 'how did it know that there was some measuring apparatus down path A?', but to take this literally as saying that electrons make conscious decisions or have knowledge of the experimental setup is plain silly. From a psychologist's point of view, you cannot validly ascribe mental states or processes to inanimate matter such as electrons, water, or rocks. The idea that the choice making is only apparent is also relevant. For example, quite a few invertebrates such as leeches and nematodes have 'nociception' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nociceptor) which means that they respond in particular ways to noxious stimuli. They might show an apparent choice to move away from the noxious stimuli, but this doesn't imply that they are making a mental choice, even less that they are aware of the noxious stimulus and then make a decision to move away from it.

I won't comment on the biological studies David Loy referenced other than to say that the idea of 'purposive' or 'adaptive' evolution is hotly contested and to note that some of the studies he cites have been seized upon by religious groups as evidence of Intelligent Design.

Overall, I got the feeling that the sources David Loy was using were writers who were more interested in bending scientific facts to fit their own ideological agenda than in any ideals of scientific objectivity. That's why I looked up Brian Swimme & Thomas Berry and Elisabet Sahtouris and found that they're writers who have an agenda of bringing together spirituality and science. To my eyes, there's quite a lot of bad science in this section.

Jeremy
SatToday

[Jundo]

Hi Jeremy,

I also have some concerns about some of these statements going overboard and claiming too much. Some of it is a little fluffy perhaps. However, maybe I can offer a perspective on some of the points that makes them a little more acceptable.

Most people these days (I am one) believe that the mind arises from the brain in some process we do not yet fully understand. The subjective mind, via the eyes, perceives light as photons reflected from a cluster of atoms of a certain structure outside the observer which, entering the eye and after being converted into electro-chemical energy, is then translated as an image of "beautiful green tree" in the brain. That is correct, but it is only one way to look at the process.,

In Buddhism, the brain and subjective mind of the person who sees, the act of seeing, the photons and the object seen are part of a single feedback loop we sometimes call "mind". It is a single process that creates your subjective experience of self, as well as all images within you of a world in which you reside, and even turns a certain cluster of atoms into the concept of "beautiful green tree". There is no "beautiful green tree" in existence until our inner processing of light waves of a certain frequency bouncing off atoms of a certain configuration that are interpreted, labeled and simulated as the idea of "beautiful green tree" in the brain. There is something "out there" in all likelihood, but the idea and image "beautiful green tree" requires us to see it, interpret it , label it, color it, experience it.

Likewise, "you" do not exist as "you" without a world in reflection, for a seer only exists when there is something to see. The self, your own self-definition of "you", only exists in reflection of the outside world in which it locates itself, and is in fact another subjective idea, interpretation and experience we call "self" in reflective contrast to all that we subjectively feel is "not myself". In other words, "Jeremy" needs an image of an outside world of trees and sandwiches in order to be the "Jeremy" experience which is dependent upon his identifying himself as located in, yet somehow separate from, the "not Jeremy" rest of the world.

Right now I am eating a yellow cheese sandwich and it tastes good. There is no "taste" without my tongue (to create taste in its interactions with some otherwise tasteless configuration of chemicals), no "yellow" without my eyes and mind to create the color out of lightwaves of a certain frequency, and no "sandwich" without human hands to impose function on a certain structure of atoms otherwise lacking such function, thus in that sense no existence of a "delicious yellow cheese sandwich" in the universe absent a sentient human mind to interpret, label and experience some cluster of matter as "delicious yellow cheese sandwich." Likewise, there is no "me" without such a world of objects and images I have created, no "you" without a self-created world of "trees" and "sandwiches," and likewise, no "trees" and "sandwiches" without a self-created experience of "you" as the experiencer.

One way to describe ourselves is thus as entities which bring taste, touch, image, feeling, name to a world otherwise barren of all that. We create all that in a universe where it does not seem to otherwise exist. (Much like a tv is just meaningless electrical pulses on a screen without our eyes and brains to give the dots meaning, and to identify objects in the patterns of dots, we bring meaning and objects into existence in the universe that are otherwise not present. There is no meaningful object, only a meaningless given pattern of dots, without us). Without us and other sentient beings, the universe cannot do that.

And since (as we have previously discussed) we are the stuff of the universe looking at other stuff of the universe, we can be defined as points at which the universe creates meaning and experiences objects out of itself. We are a vital step in the universe turning star dust into both "trees" and "cheese sandwiches."

It may or may not turn out that, in quantum mechanics, observation actually collapses the wave function and determines the constitution of the particle-wave realm in ways we do not yet understand. However, leaving that aside, I can say that the human mind very clearly makes beautiful trees and cheese sandwiches (and just about every other item and idea of this world without exception), i.e., all that exists above the mere fact of uninterpreted and unexperienced raw patterns of atoms, waves or particle themselves.

Does a tree make a sound in the forest if nobody to hear it? No! There may be vibrations and sound waves, but no sound without an ear and hearer. Furthermore, no trees without an eye and seer. The world of noisy falling trees is created by us in a very tangible way.

Is there anything in the foregoing that is contradicted by the perspectives of modern science in any way?

Gassho, J

SatTOday

[Risho]

Jundo thank you! -- this is getting to the point of my questions that I will try to articulate; sometimes when I start questioning I lose the point; these are tricky topics But please bear with me as these are some core questions I have with Buddhist philosophy/thought. I've had these for quite some time, I just don't know how to ask them.

So are you saying that there is no subjective experience without a subject to perceive it? I mean that makes sense to me, and that's how I understand it. "Beautiful" is a value judgment; green, beautiful, tall, short, etc are all relative comparisons to other things. Obviously without other stuff to compare it to, we could not make comparisons. Tall doesn't exist without short and so on.

Even in our measurement systems, what is a gram, a pound, meter per second? It's all built on comparison; from that perspective everything is related.

So I get that - I think that is pretty obvious. I think it's logical and experiential that none of us are separate, independent and/or unchanging entities too, i.e. the non-self. There is a self, but it's not this separate thing we think. So it's a self, but it's a "non" self which means that it's a slight tweak -- actually a radically different perspective from what we normally think of ourselves as human beings.

The precepts all support this - In a way, maybe you could say that instead of behaving in ways that are traditionally self-centered (with a view on me, myself and I - separate from you and the world), we try to live in a way that is self-centered, with the understanding that this Zen self-centeredness is focused on the benefit to others. So we do not kill, but moreover we support life, etc. We take care of ourselves because that is taking care of others and vice versa.

Now this is the kicker for me at least --> although that seems very logical and reasonable that I am not separate, I do not intuitively nor habitually behave that way. I do behave as if people are unchanging, static, separate, etc. I behave as if it is me vs. the world, that I have to "get" ahead. This limited idea of self is at the center of our dukkah.

And at the same time, there are separate people and things - I mean forms is emptiness but emptiness is form. So there is (what we call a "tree") in the world; of course, "tree" is our invention to describe whatever a tree is, but we have to make these inventions so we can live in the world. At the same time, we don't really know what it is. It's very hard for me to not fall to one side or the other mentally, which is why this chapter raises a lot of questions.

Further I think Zen practice (and obviously/ without saying this comes from a lay beginner) helps us to dissolve that limited perspective. By seeing our thoughts and not being controlled by them, by studying the dharma, dialogue with the sangha such as this, practicing the precepts, practicing gratitude (again practice itself) we begin to see how we are related and how we need to take care of each other - and we can learn to not be hooked or not reject our feelings of greed, anger and ignorance.

Instead we can "shikantaza" those thoughts - we acknowledge they are there but we can learn to not be led around to take more positive action.

Ok, with all that being said... the troubling part of this chapter, and with the bending of science to meet our belief systems is that we feel like we need to have science back us up so that it validates our practice.

I would posit that from one perspective that makes sense; we want to make sure that our lives (and what we do) aligns with truth as opposed to superstitious nonsense.

However, and this is where I take exception, beyond that, I think Zen practice is addressing something that science does not. So I really don't care if quantum physics aligns with the heart sutra. I think the Heart Sutra is addressing what it means to be a human being. I think practice addresses our subjective experience as human beings. I think it gives us this path to explore what it means to be alive and live in a meaningful way; something that science isn't really in the business of doing. It's not designed to do that.

Anyway my clumsy way of expressing my thoughts.

Gassho,

Risho
-will be sitting after work, but I had to get this out